A few nights ago I had a dream with a very complex plot, revolving around a medium-sized island close enough to England to be seen with the naked eye, and yet out of the British jurisdiction. This was where slaves were kept. If you were somehow politically undersirable – a migrant, a petty criminal, “underserving poor” – you were sent to this island to work for the rest of your life.
I was a slave too. For most of the dream, I was preoccupied with escape. I would run off to get onto a boat, get caught, get beaten; I would try to swim the channel, get caught, get beaten. Once I made it all the way to the shore, only to be immediately identified as a slave, because I cowered from figures of authority.
A lot of punishment can fit into a dream. Mostly it was done by having me tied to a wooden post, with rope looped through a metal ring at its top. I’d be whipped with a wide leather strap – on my bottom, across my back. It being a dream, the whippings didn’t hurt, but they brought me so much anguish that I thought they did.
In the end, I did escape. I flew away.
Have you ever read about Australian penal colonies? Sarah Island (Macquarie Harbor) and Norfolk Island were places where convicts who had committed further crimes after transportation were sent.
I don’t think that there were ever female convicts on Norfolk Island, but there certainly were on Sarah Island – and their treatment is very much like your dream.
You can read about it in the book ‘The Fatal Shore’.
Did any of them fly away, iwasrobert?
Love the way the imagination gets you out of sticky situations in dreams – wish it happened like that in real life. Like – Oh, there’s Abel with a cane! I think I’ll just jump out of this nice convenient window and take refuge in a passing cloud!
If we could do that, do you think they’d invent girl-proof window locks?
xxx
@iwasrobert – sounds like I need to go book-shopping!
@catherine – and then the Caner In The Clouds would come and get you…
@catherine – missed that last bit!
@abel – it’s a good book!